


Vitiate - Weakness and Strength

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1463]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21610621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: "You'll do." With those two words, Gibbs doomed Tony's chances of leadership.
Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1463]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/444514
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28
Collections: 2019 Gen Angst Week Challenge, The Writer's Guild Community





	Vitiate - Weakness and Strength

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 05/03/2003 for the word [vitiate](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/05/03/vitiate).
> 
> vitiate[ vish-ee-eyt ]  
> verb (used with object), vi·ti·at·ed, vi·ti·at·ing.  
> to impair the quality of; make faulty; spoil.  
> to impair or weaken the effectiveness of.  
> to debase; corrupt; pervert.  
> to make legally defective or invalid; invalidate:  
> to vitiate a claim.
> 
> This is for Day 6 of the Gen Angst Week challenge. Today's prompt is Weakness.

“You’ll do.” Those words echoed through Tony’s head like a pounding cymbal. He couldn’t seem to forget them. Even worse it seemed like no one else could either.

With those two words, Gibbs had set the stage to vitiate Tony’s leadership. How could he get anyone to listen to him when he was simply a make do substitute? With that roaring recommendation, Gibbs had pretty much guaranteed that Tony’s leadership would end in turmoil.

It certainly wasn’t off to a great start as Ziva, McGee, and even Abby undermined him and his orders every chance they got. On top of that Jenny kept pressing him to prove himself not only as a team leader, but on the new undercover op she wanted him to run. Tony knew he should turn down the undercover op, but undercover had always been where he excelled before.

Feeling like he was drowning in weakness as the team refused to do what he ordered, Tony grasped at something he knew he could do well. He knew it was a mistake to accept the undercover op when the team was such a disaster, but he gave into his weakness to do something he could be proud of. He ignored the red flags around the undercover assignment and threw himself into it full force.

This was something he could do and do it well. He knew how to do this. He didn’t know how to recover from Gibbs’ mistake. If Gibbs wasn’t coming back, it would be completely different, but he knew Gibbs would be back.

There was no way that Gibbs would be able to stay away from NCIS permanently. He was too much of a Marine to actually be able to quit. So instead of addressing the problems that the team had, Tony took the mentality that he was only keeping the team alive until Gibbs returned.

He knew that the team’s behavior didn’t reflect well on NCIS or his leadership, but he couldn’t spare a moment to think about that. He was literally running himself ragged between the undercover op, his paperwork, Gibbs’ paperwork, and fixing the conjoined terror twins reports, so that they were actually decent.

Honestly, McGee should have been doing the SFA paperwork, but Tony had tried to get him to step up multiple times and McGee had just scoffed in his face and told him not to sluff his work off. He’d tried going to Jenny, but she either didn’t care or was happy letting the two of them do whatever they felt like and barely following NCIS protocol. Tony couldn’t count the number of times he’d written them up, but it didn’t seem to matter. 

He only hoped that Gibbs returned soon. Maybe it was weak of him to wish for that, but he honestly didn’t care. He was tired of the crap he was expected to deal with and at least with Gibbs back the two wouldn’t sit around and do nothing. 

He’d always dreamed of being team lead for the MCRT some day, but if this is what it would be like Tony didn’t want any part of it anymore. Gibbs was only gone for three months, but Tony couldn’t help feeling like it was longer. He’d spent the entire time feeling pretty damn worthless and useless not only as team lead, but in the undercover op too.

He hated feeling like the weak little kid that he’d been growing up. He hadn’t been able to do anything back then. How did you fight your own father, after all?

It was even worse feeling weak as an adult and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to change it, right now. The undercover op was going to hell in a handbasket because Jenny had stepped on the toes of an active CIA operation and wouldn’t back off. The team was doing fuck all every time Tony turned around and he had zero back up. Zero!

Of course if he thought that Gibbs being back would change anything, he was wrong. In fact, it only made it worse because while Gibbs had returned, he wasn’t the Gibbs everyone knew. It was like they’d gotten a shell of their leader back. Tony tried to cover for Gibbs, but Gibbs’ weakness and his weakness were meshing in completely incompatible ways.

It was torture watching the team, which he used to pride himself for being a member of, fall apart and knowing he could do nothing to stop it. Honestly, everything was downhill from there. Gibbs stepped in it, Ziva stepped in it, McGee stepped in it. Heck, Tony knew his shoes weren’t clean either. 

He tried so many times to be strong and leave the team. He considered so many other job offers, but in the end he turned them down. Maybe it was weakness that led to him remaining on the team. Maybe it was loyalty. He honestly didn’t know anymore. 

All he knew was that something needed to change and it needed to change fast. Losing Jenny to a gun fight in the middle of nowhere was definitely not what he was talking about, though, it definitely brought about change. Tony felt blindsided as Vance swooped in out of nowhere and split up the team.

It couldn’t have been because the team was doing a terrible job. Tony knew that the team solve rate had stayed the same while Gibbs was gone and even after his return. Tony had made sure of it, but he didn’t know what reasoning Vance had instead.

He found himself alone in the middle of a ship with hundreds of sailors. Yet again he had no support. It was the best thing that could have happened to him in this situation.

He didn’t have to worry about what anyone else thought. He was able to figure out who he was again. He absolutely hated being at sea all alone as he was a people person and being stuck in the middle of nowhere didn’t work well for him, but it allowed him to recover from the runaway train that had been his life ever since Gibbs’ Mexican siesta.

Of course that wasn’t to say that everything was magically better, but at least he no longer felt weak. The rest of it would come with time. At least, he hoped it would.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has 2 stories already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least 2 more stories before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> It's 2019 now and I have closed my 2018 Prompt collection, but fear not my 2019 Prompt Collection is now open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2019/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2020. I'm hoping to complete all the 2019 prompts by the end of 2020. Do not fear I have not forgotten about the 2018 prompts and will continue working through them. It's just easier for me to not get overwhelmed if I keep the prompts separated by the year they were given to me.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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